


Dubitatio

by feralphoenix



Series: Puer Maledraconis Gulcasa☆Magica [3]
Category: Blaze Union, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Gen, Illustrated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking so huge a step requires not <i>courage</i>, precisely, but being reminded that you really can be brave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dubitatio

**Author's Note:**

> Illustrations in this chapter are by me.

It had been at least half an hour since he’d thrown up, and even now his body still wouldn’t stop shaking. If he tried to stand up from the too-short stool—if he tried to convince himself that he was all right—the nausea would redouble and his body would just curl in on itself again. His heart was beating so fast, _so fast,_ and even though sickness had rendered him immobile he felt restless, hyper-alert, like there was a few gallons of soda’s worth of caffeine-induced energy he had to run off _right this instant._

But he couldn’t move. He could barely even breathe.

 _This is stupid,_ he thought to himself, squeezing his eyes shut: _this is stupid and it’s pointless and there’s no reason to feel like this. There’s not. There’s not. Get up._

It was impossible—it was impossible, and so he just sat with his legs splayed out at awkward angles, gripping the edge of the bathroom counter in both hands, head down. The room smelled of vomit and lemon-scented cleaner: The toilet was another door down the hallway and that’d been much too far away, so he’d ducked into the bathroom instead and barely made it to the sink in time. No one had yelled. No one had made angry faces, even. But all the same, he shook like there was an earthquake in his bones.

Tomorrow. It was tomorrow. How, _how_ could it already be tomorrow? Even meeting with the same group of doctors and nurses who had been taking care of him over the past two months was too much sometimes—even their hands, always kind and gentle, made his body jerk back every now and then, his throat tighten with the desire to scream or to cry.

He didn’t want to stay this way—didn’t want to remain weak—didn’t want to live his whole life wretched. He’d been anticipating this date with an equal amount of hope and anxiety, but when it came down to the wire, his mostly-healed scars and the few wheals still covered in band-aids, the ones that had just gotten their stitches out last week, all screamed _no_ at him in a frantic chorus. This was too early. This was _too early._ He had only just achieved this sanctuary called a home. Even school, where Siskier and Jenon would be there to protect him— _especially_ school, loud and terrifying and claustrophobic—was just asking too much.

Gulcasa forced his eyelids open, squinted at the tiles beneath him, then closed his eyes again and shuddered. _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

Hearing footsteps in the hall made him startle, the whole of his body jerking up awkwardly in a way that made him have to swallow frantically to keep the bile down—a reaction he hadn’t had in weeks. He was shaking so hard his bones had to be rattling, his entire body jittering visibly.

Feet in long stockings appeared in the doorframe, and then his mother knelt down there at the edge of the tiles. She had a folded quilt in one arm and a cup in her free hand. Her expression was carefully neutral—even the shallow lines at the sides of her mouth didn’t betray any emotion—but there was open concern in her eyes. She didn’t say anything, she just watched him.

Gulcasa took in a breath. Stopped himself as the words caught in his throat. Closed his eyes and braced himself. Opened them again.

“I can’t,” and the words just spilled out on their own, cracked and shrill with panic—“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do this, I can’t go back—”

“Gulcasa,” she said quietly, and he bit down on his words and curled into himself. His eyes burned and ached, tears threatening to escape from them.

When he felt her fingertips brush against his cheek—soft, light, infinitely careful—his breath started to hitch, and fat tears squeezed through his closed eyelids to drip audibly on the floor.

“I can’t,” was all he could say, over and over and over: “I can’t.”

Eyes still closed, he managed to find her shoulder and hide his face against it. There was the sound of plastic on tile as she set the cup down, and then the soft fabric of the quilt was brought gently around his shoulders.

When his mother stroked his back, she didn’t do it directly. The quilt acted as a buffer between them—not only did its warmth help his shaking to subside just a little, it kept her touch from making him feel even sicker. It was something that they’d worked out a long time ago, before he’d even been released from the hospital. Experience told him that even if he were struck or grabbed, the heavy barrier of the blanket would muffle the blow before it actually reached his skin. It helped keep him from panicking instinctively. In times like this, when he needed comfort so badly that it was like a different kind of physical pain, it was a godsend.

He sat still and hid his face and cried until he simply could not cry anymore. His face hurt, he still couldn’t breathe, and his back and legs ached from the awkward position. There was a dull pain in the right side of his chest, his arm, and his shoulder. His body was still shaking thinly, even if it wasn’t as badly as it had been before.

Still, the gentle motions of his mother’s hand did not stop.

“Gulcasa,” she murmured. Her voice was soft, filled with warmth. “What’s the scariest thing you can think of about trying to go back to school?”

His shoulders came up on their own as he reached out and took hold of her sleeve in both hands. “It’s—it’s that. After everything that’s happened there—I don’t know if, if I can face it alone anymore. Siskier and—and Jenon, they can’t… they can’t be with me the whole time.” It was hard to get complete sentences out through his strained breathing, but still, he gave it his best effort. “No matter what, I’ll—I’ll be all alone sometimes. If I’m alone and—and there’s no way out, and someone doesn’t know to stay away—”

The patient-voiced counselors and therapists, people who had a curious way of making themselves so soothing and unthreatening that he’d never panicked around them, had talked to him a lot about the episodes he’d had in school before his mother had saved him. They had told him what the different kinds of ways he lost control of himself were called, and what caused them. The kinds of things he’d learned—and that his mother had probably heard from them, too—were making life a lot easier here. Home was a safe place because everyone knew not to make loud noises or come up behind him. He could think of this house as _home_ because his mother and Emilia knew ways to touch him that wouldn’t make his body automatically react with violence, wouldn’t make him drown in panic and lash out.

But people wouldn’t know at school not to do those things, and just the thought of trying to explain anything to those horrible teachers, to those noisy awful kids, made him want to throw up with the force of his fear.

He’d finally gained a safe haven for the first time in his life, and now that he had to venture out of it, he was terrified to. Just knowing that made him feel like the worst kind of coward, but—if he could just stay here for the rest of his life, just interact with his mother and Emilia and Siskier and Jenon and _nobody else,_ he could live with that.

His mother was silent for a moment, and then she spoke, voice meandering a little. “…Being alone. Yes… being alone certainly is scary.”

She was quiet again for just a moment, but then she lifted her hands away from him. In the next moment, he felt her kiss at his temple lightly.

“I have an idea. Wait here, and drink that water slowly—it might make you feel a little better. I’ll return shortly.”

And when he chanced to open his eyes, she was smiling at him. He blinked once, confused, and then she was pushing herself up and walking away.

At a loss for what to do, he reached out and picked up the plastic tumbler. His hands were still quivering, so he held the cup in both of them so that he wouldn’t spill it. Even then, when he raised it to his mouth, he managed to drip water onto his clothes.

He drank slowly, put the cup back down, and wiped his face. His cheeks were sticky and gritty with tears. Even the sigh he let out shook; he gripped the quilt to steady his fingers and pulled it more closely against him.

And he listened. There was the sound of his mother’s footsteps: Quiet but audible on the carpeted floors. There was the steady swishing of her skirts as she walked, and the swing of doors. For a little while, there was the sound of voices—his mother’s and Emilia’s; she must have stopped by his sister’s room, since she’d retreated there a little before he’d broken down completely. And then more footsteps; the creak of another door. A low, faint mechanical hum that went on for several minutes.

Gulcasa sat and shivered, watching the doorway anxiously. It was about ten minutes before his mother returned; as soon as she got back to the bathroom door, she knelt down so that they would be on eye level again.

“When you go back to school tomorrow,” she said, “I want you to take this.”

She held out her hands, and when Gulcasa reached out in turn with palms uplifted, she put something like a ribbon into them.

It was a black silk ribbon like the ones Emilia liked to wear in her hair, about a foot and a half long. There was a thin line of gold stitching straight down the middle; when Gulcasa turned it over he saw that another ribbon had been sewn onto it. The thinner one was a narrow line of gold with loops of lace to either side, forming a pale band straight down the length of the black.

“…What is this?” he asked at last. How was a ribbon supposed to help him not to panic at school?

His mother just smiled. She layered her hands underneath his, her touch careful, palms cupping his knuckles.

“This is a protective charm,” she told him. Her words were patient and warm, and her smile never faltered. “You can wear it in your hair. It’s made from something of mine and something of Emilia’s, so as long as you have this you will be able to remember that even if we are not by your side, we are still here for you, worrying for you and caring for you. As long as we love you, Gulcasa, you will _never_ be alone.”

He didn’t know what to say. All he could do was stare at his mother in wonder. There was heat in his cheeks and warmth stinging at his eyes; he wouldn’t realize until later that he had stopped shaking.

“You also must remember the cell phone I bought for you,” she went on. Her smile had evened out a little, and she looked more serious. “I do fully expect you to do your best and try to bear with things as long as you can, but the _moment_ you know you can’t handle any more, make whatever excuse you have to and call me. I will come to take you back home.

“This is going to be the hardest step—we all know that. And your friends and I will support you in every way we know how. We will make sure that whenever you truly need us, we will be there.”

“I—I, thanks,” he managed to gasp out. He could barely believe sometimes that the woman in front of him was really _real._ “But—but what if it’s not okay to—to call you when I’m at school?”

She looked at him blandly, and beneath her mild expression and lined face and white hair he got the feeling that she was made out of steel. “You are my son and you have been through a terrible ordeal which has caused you to have special needs, and if anyone at your school attempts to deny your right to have those needs seen to, I will fight them.”

And then she smiled and cupped his face softly in both hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Her fingertips were pleasantly cool against his heated skin.

“Let’s get your face washed and you off to bed,” she said, and smiled at him with such sheer _love_ in her eyes that he started to tremble again for entirely different reasons.

“Okay,” he replied weakly, and leaned forward gingerly to rest his head against her chest. Her arms came up around him lightly, and the weight of her hands through the quilt over his shoulders was a comfort in the way he’d never imagined another person’s touch could be. “…Okay, Mom.”


End file.
